It is Martin Luther King day in the U.S. so there are several afternoon games today. That means if you have the day off and have NHL Center Ice you can watch NHL hockey from Noon to approximately 12:30am when the late game ends. That’s a lot of hockey but there are some good games today. The first game has Tampa facing the Islanders and both these teams are in a tough fight for the final playoff spot or two in the east. Next up is a traditional rivalry between Buffalo and Boston. The two 4:00 games aren’t that interesting as three of the 4 teams don’t look to be playoff contenders but at 6:00 Calgary and Nashville should be a stellar game. At 7:00 we have an original 6 matchup between Detroit and Montreal which is always worth watching and the late game has Colorado facing San Jose which should be good as well. So, are any of you going to watch 12 hours of hockey today?

It’s Hockey Day in Canada today so if you like you can pretty much watch hockey or people talking about hockey all day long. The triple header on CBC starts with Montreal-Ottawa in the afternoon, Vancouver-Toronto in the evening and Calgary Edmonton as the late game. All of those games should be quality games. Other games to watch are the Rangers-Bruins. Both teams have struggled a bit recently and are in tight for the final playoff spot or two in the east. The Atlanta Thrashers and Carolina Hurricanes meet up as the second place Hurricanes have closed the gap to just 4 points in the southeast division. Unfortunately there isn’t really a whole lot exciting happening in the western conference besides the Edmonton-Calgary game. With Anaheim’s injury situation the Ducks-Avalanche game could be interesting but the rest aren’t to compelling at all.

There are 3 games tonight, two of them pretty good and one not so good. The first game sees New Jersey and Atlanta matching up in what is a race for second spot in the eastern conference. For most of the season Atlanta has easily been the second best team in the eastern conference behind Buffalo but now several teams are right on their tail including the Devils who are just 2 points back and have 2 games in hand. Should be a good game. The other good game is yet another northwest division matchup as the Oilers take on the Wild. Currently the Oilers sit 4th in the division and 9th in the conference just one point back of the 3rd and 8th place Wild and have a game in hand. This is a big game for Edmonton. The third game of the night sees Nashville, the top team in the central division take on Columbus, the worst team in the central division. Not much to get excited about there.

Here are tonights game predictions. Games to watch are Toronto-Buffalo, Ottawa-Rangers, Dallas-Anaheim, Calgary-Colorado, and Minnesota-Vancouver. All are either rivalry games or important games in the standings.

This morning on the Team 1200 Pierre McGuire commented that the Colorado-Detroit game last night was an entertaining game. He was then asked if that rivalry was still there and his immediate comment, almost before the question was finished being asked, was and emphatic no, not like before and that none of the players or personalites are there anymore. That got me to thinking, are any rivalries as good now as before? I can tell you that the rivalry hatred between the Senators and Leafs isn’t what it used to be pre-lockout. Sure, Sens fans still love to boo the Leafs, but it doesn’t seem the same. They don’t have the hatred for the team or the players like they did in the past. The Leafs-Habs still have a rivalry going but I am not sure it is quite the same either. Toronto has played 7 games with division rival Boston so far this season and I have a hard time saying any of the games were played with much passion or with any sense of rivalry hatred towards each other. Same for Ottawa-Boston last night. It was a complete yawner for 2 periods. Ottawa-New Jersey on Sunday wasn’t all that great either and they have had a bit of a rivalry in the past too. Detroit-Colorado, Colorado-Vancouver, Edmonton-Dallas, have all developed rivalries to some extent in the past but I can’t say any of them are really considered rivals anymore. Is the Flames-Oilers rivalry as good now as it was in the past? Have any new rivalries developed in the past year and a half?

So, I have to ask you all, is the new NHL killing rivalries? Do the teams you follow now have as big of rivalries now as they did pre-lockout? Has the strict (overly in some cases) calling of penalties caused so much of the physical play to be eliminated from the game reduce the sense of rivalry? Does not having guys like Tie Domi in the NHL crashing and banging reduce the sense of rivalry? Even Darcy Tucker is a shell of his former pesty self. Has the salary cap promoted so much mediocrity that every team is so much like every other team? Are there are no more big spenders to hate (Toronto) or small market underdog teams to cheer for (Ottawa)? Is all this killing the NHL? I have always contended that the New York Yankees are good for baseball because it gives a team for everyone to hate (if they don’t love them). Has the NHL eliminated this and is it going to hurt the league?

That’s a lot of questions, but I am curious as to what you all think. My opinion is skill and fancy goals are fun and all, but intensity and passion (for your team or against another team) in my mind is really what sells sports and what entertainment is all about and to some extent I think that is gone in this new NHL.

On a related note, Ottawa had a 40% discount night last night and didn’t sell out and still have 2000 tickets available for next weeks 40% discount night against Washington and one of the most skilled players in the game today in Ovechkin. Ticket sales are down across the NHL. The buzz from last season seems to have worn off. Is this a sign of things to come? Is this a result of the lack of intensity and passion in most NHL games now?

First Period: Boston is bad, but Ottawa is horrific. Boston scored 2 goals.
Second Period: Boston joins Ottawa in the horrific category. No goals, shots are 6-3 Ottawa.
Third Period: Boston still horrific, but Ottawa plays well, gets some bounces capitalizes on horrific defense by Boston (who were missing Chara and Stuart), and scores 5 goals including an empty netter.

First 2 periods were complete yawners.

Anyway, tonight we will see New Jersey get an easy 2 points over St. Louis and Buffalo get an easy 2 points over Chicago, while a couple of mediocre teams in Florida and Pittsburgh meet up and in the late, and most interesting game, Edmonton takes on San Jose.

Here are the NHL Power Rankings through games of last night. Anaheim has managed to maintain top spot though just barely over division rival San Jose.

Rank

Last Week

Team

AdjWinP

SchedStr

Power Rank

1

1

Anaheim

0.693

0.515

0.692

2

4

San Jose

0.667

0.521

0.691

3

3

Detroit

0.631

0.526

0.658

4

2

Buffalo

0.655

0.464

0.602

5

8

Calgary

0.550

0.537

0.594

6

5

Dallas

0.570

0.523

0.591

7

9

Vancouver

0.535

0.534

0.590

8

7

Nashville

0.631

0.491

0.580

9

12

New Jersey

0.595

0.469

0.549

10

13

Minnesota

0.452

0.552

0.537

11

15

Edmonton

0.488

0.536

0.536

12

6

Montreal

0.548

0.475

0.521

13

10

Carolina

0.523

0.475

0.496

14

16

Ottawa

0.511

0.478

0.492

15

24

Phoenix

0.439

0.537

0.488

16

14

Boston

0.500

0.479

0.483

17

11

Atlanta

0.523

0.464

0.478

18

20

Washington

0.488

0.483

0.472

19

23

Colorado

0.476

0.511

0.466

20

17

Toronto

0.465

0.488

0.462

21

27

Los Angeles

0.375

0.561

0.453

22

25

Pittsburgh

0.488

0.465

0.441

23

26

NY Rangers

0.465

0.470

0.434

24

18

NY Islanders

0.451

0.474

0.428

25

21

Chicago

0.440

0.500

0.422

26

19

Tampa Bay

0.442

0.473

0.416

27

22

Florida

0.409

0.483

0.404

28

28

Columbus

0.393

0.518

0.402

29

29

St. Louis

0.317

0.535

0.359

30

30

Philadelphia

0.274

0.475

0.262

AdjWinP is a teams winning percentage when shootouts are considered ties and there are no points awarded for overtime lossesSchedStr is an indication of a teams relative difficulty of schedulePower Rank is the teams expected winning percentage if team played all .500 teams

There are 11 games on the schedule tonight with some key matchups and a few yawners. I’ll be at the Sens-Bruins game tonight so I am hoping it will be a good one and it should as these two teams are battling it out in the standings. The Islanders-Rangers game is worth whatching too as the Islanders look to be falling apart while the Rangers are starting to look like they might be getting things going again. Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh meet each other both hoping to get a win to show they deserve to still be contenders for the final playoff spot or two. Out west a struggling Anaheim has a tough matchup against Nashville and the Iginla-less Calgary Flames face division rival Minnesota. The yawner of the night sees St. Louis facing Columbus.

There is some discussion on the Battle of Ontario blog about predicted standings and since I have the code already written from last season I figured I’d chime in and give the results I have through yesterdays games. The preditions they made on the Battle of Ontario are fairly accurate and working in schedule strength doesn’t have a major impact on their predicted standings for the east. But the playoff race is real tight with just 7 points separating 5th spot from 11th spot so everything is still wide open.

Search

Welcome

Welcome to HockeyAnalysis.com, where I strive to get a better understanding of the game of hockey through the use of statistical analysis. I hope you enjoy whatever time you spend here and maybe even learn a little. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me an e-mail at david (at) hockeyanalysis.com.